And then there were none

Poor Fjerten expired last night. She was a pretty useless pet, but I'll miss her anyway.

Fjerten

It seems Fjerten has finally recovered from the shock of the Great Escape. She's been climbing into my hand again for her morning snack this week. Here she is this morning:

The Great Escape

Bummer that I didn't have a camera man on standby this morning!

Fjerten escaped. She was soooo eager to get her morning snack, she was practically jumping up and down. I opened the side door to her cage instead of the top door. This hasn't been a problem before, as she's been way too shy to get particularly close to my hand. This time, however, she more or less jumped up and suddenly she was outside on the floor. Oh noes!!

Freedom! But she only had it for like 2 seconds. I grabbed her so fast! :-) Lucky for me, she ran towards the wall and then to the right, which means she was aiming to get behind her cage. If she'd turned left, she would have been under the sofa before I'd even had time to blink. And then I don't think we would've ever seen her again.

True to form, she screeched when I caught her. Something tells me she'll be even more freaked out than usual over the next few days.

Fjerten being unfriendly

Fjerten wasn't in a friendly mood today, though. Here are a few videos of her. She wasn't having any 'climbing into two-legs' hands' or anything today, oh no!

Fjerten:


Again:


Scary two-legs:


*sigh* What can you do. It'll be a while yet before she's as tame as Knerten.

Fjerten again...

Today I had my camera handy from the get-go and caught Fjerten on film climbing up her cage to get at her morning snack! You hardly ever see her climb, but lately she's been doing this when I approach her cage in the morning. Good old Pearl used to climb (and fall down) all the time.

Oh well. How about this:


She still has a tendency to nibble my fingers, but I suppose she'll stop eventually, like Knerten did. Fjerten is just... a little slower on the uptake. ;-)

Land of the brave!

Fjerten this morning. Watch in awe! ;-)

Progress, part III

This is Fjerten having her morning snack today:



She's all kinds of brave these days. :-) The camera spooked her at one point, but that's to be expected.

She approaches when I walk into the living room in the morning. Wanting her snack. Aw, she's so cute! Not quite as calm as Knerten yet, but better. Ever better.

Fjerten in hand (yes! Fjerten!)

Yeah, so, there's this taming project with these dwarf hamsters, right? And there's this one shy one, called Fjerten. Two-legs are so scaryscary and she generally runs and hides at the first hint of a two-legs nearby.

But NOT TODAY! Today Fjerten actually climbed all the way into my hand. Only for a second, but still. =) And she didn't bite. The little beast actually bit me the other day hard enough that it hurt. I suppose she wanted more cereal... But not today. Today she was all smiles and loveliness and whatnot. Watch:

Knerten is luvable!

Knerten is luvable! We've been away for a couple of days (spent a total of 3 hours in Germany on Thursday - no prizes for guessing where we've been!) and as usual I was wondering if the beasties had missed us at all.

Fjerten was nice and again almost climbed into my hand for her snacks. She didn't dare go all the way this time either, though, and I didn't have my camera handy, so...

Knerten has been asleep all day and didn't make an appearance until just now (9pm). When she did finally wake up, however, she was her usual friendly self as evidenced in video below:



There's hope for the little beasts yet! :-D

Progress: Fjerten being friendly (Yes! Fjerten!)

We're somewhat preoccupied with Knerten here at Knerten & Fjerten, for the simple reason that Knerten is the 'people person' (ehr... people hamster...) of the two.

Today however I managed to catch Fjerten on video while on her best behaviour. This is about as sociable as she gets. The trick is to make absolutely no sudden movements and offer plenty of trilltrall's cereal:

Dwarf hamster photography

trilltrall has been reading up on how to use his system camera, a Panasonic Lumix G1. He decided to test his new-found photography skills on the little beasties. They are notoroiously difficult to take pictures of, what with them never sitting still.

This is trilltrall's photo studio:
As you see, it's the "digging box" with an added white background for the occasion and a red rose in case the little beasts should decide that flowers are fun. Dear old Pearl quite enjoyed chewing on flowers. Turned out Knerten & Fjerten aren't much interested in flowers, though. Poor little ones, they don't know what they're missing.

The camera is on a tripod - a relatively new purchase, trilltrall got it when we were in Gothenburg. It's a Swedish tripod! Some extra light on the chair to the left and voila - neat little studio for dwarf hamster photography.

So, it turns out system cameras, unsurprisingly, are the right tools for taking pictures of Roborovkis. Crank up the ISO, fast shutter speed, apperture low... or so I'm told. ;-)

A few shots of the lovely Knerten:



There are also photos of the ever elusive Fjerten! Behold, Fjerten in all her glory:

She's a pretty little one, isn't she? Too bad she's so shy.

Frustrating little buggers!!

So. The taming project continues to bomb.

Yesterday it was time to clean cages again and I figured it would be another good opportunity to get some footage + get the dwarfs used to being handled.

Got off to a bad start: I mistakenly assumed Knerten was asleep in her house and so just placed her house in the digging box. Then proceeded the take her cage apart so I could clean it, only to discover that she wasn't in fact in her house. Turned out she had been asleep in the cage, in a little nest she'd made for herself. Of course she freaked out completely when my removing her roof woke her up. I had to make a grab for her before she leapt out on the floor. She wasn't happy. Then she came out of her house to find snacks only once while in the digging box. At that point I picked her up again and she shrieeeekkked. The way only Fjerten has done before. *sigh* I think this project is doomed!! And are dwarf hamsters really supposed to make that screeching sound??

I didn't get any footage of Knerten in the box yesterday at all. Here she is after I'd cleaned her cage, having a sand bath. She was acting so weird, just sitting there doing nothing for a while. Don't think it really shows in the video, though.



She also did a great deal of running last night.



Fjerten wasn't any better, but at least she made a little bit of an appearance while in the box:



I'm tempted to give up the taming project...

Taming of Fjerten

... going even worse, actually.

This is Fjerten just now, 10 minutes ago. She was up having a snack, so I decided to see if I could get her to take a piece of AllBran from my hand. No such luck!

Fjerten being cute

Fjerten was also out and about while her cage was being cleaned by scary two-legs. A few videos of her:

Progress (alternative spelling: "progress")

Fjerten was a total wimp last night. I tried to give her some rolled oats, but she wasn't having any of it. In fact she freaked out enough to actually climb to the second level of her cage. She normally doesn't climb. She appears to prefer using the tunnel.

Today, however, is another day and just now she took a vegetable snack from my fingers. Ok, so she was "hiding" in her tunnel at the time and I held the snack in front of her little face, but it still counts! She didn't run away, after all.

(As it happens, both the little ones are big fans of this particular vegetable snack. I like to pretend that it's good for them, veggies and all... ;-) )

Home alone, take II

The beautiful beasties will have to spend another weekend home alone. I'm sure they'll miss us terribly. Knerten's water bottle has been secured (again, the wonders of electrical tape!) and they both have enough hamster pellets and broccoli to keep them happy until we're back Sunday night.

Fjerten was up this morning and got a tiny little taste of trilltrall's cereal. She wasn't brave enough to actually come get it from my hand, but she seems slightly less terrified these days. When she gets scared she tends to not hide for so long anymore. Baby steps, thy name is Fjerten.

Fjerten exploring

While her cage got cleaned, Fjerten was transported to the "digging box" while still in her house. Less stressful for her that way. She was brave enough to go exploring a little bit. Food, great for bribing robs into the open!

Poor Fjerten is currently sulking in her tunnel again, but I'm sure she'll get used to the idea of a clean cage soon.

Cactus

trilltrall and I own a cactus. It's a lovely little plant which we got as a house warming gift from AudiX78 almost three years ago. It almost died, the poor thing, but to the left here you see what it looks like now. It's amazing that it has survived. If you look closely, you can see the withered remains of the other parts of it that used to be there when we got it...

A couple of months ago, we moved this poor plant into the daylight and started giving it water. Suddenly it grew and grew, and wouldn't you know - it even got a pretty little pink flower! And the point is that it's growing new little leaves (or what we should call them) again, which I hope means we'll soon see more flowers! :-D I think it's some variety of holiday cactus. The one flower we've had looked a lot like this Christmas cactus.

(If you were wondering, it's just that Knerten and Fjerten don't do very much, so I've decided this can be a part-time cactus blog.)

A little detail from June 7th:

The same little ones today, June 11th:

Maybe it's just me, but I think they've grown! ;-)

And in hamster news, Fjerten was bold enough to almost take a piece of AllBran from my hand this morning. She sat inside her little tunnel, but only just. Her nose was almost on the outside, and she nibbled the AllBran while I still held on to it. Of course, as soon as I moved even a fifth of an inch, she ran deeper into the tunnel to hide. What can you do. Baby steps.

Blog worthy?

Unsurprisingly the animals survived spending the weekend home alone. The water bottle was secure and Knerten apparently properly hydrated. trilltrall and I had a good weekend down in slightly more southern climes and everyone was happy.

The past week I've been waiting for the animals to do something blog worthy. That, and waiting for trilltrall to experiment with his new camera by taking pictures of the little critters. There have been no blog worthy acrobatics and no pics from trilltrall. What's a poor blogger to do?? Let's talk about flowers. :-)

Summer has reached the high north, at least where I work, and there are both white clover and red clover just by my bus stop out there now. Pearl was always such a sucker for white clover, so I figured maybe the little robs would appreciate it too. I think it was Tuesday I brought some home with me. It was a resounding success, wouldn't you know.... :

Me presenting white clover to Knerten:

Knerten approaching said flower:

Fjerten just completely ignored it. Silly two-legs, bringing flowers!

Tonight I didn't bring them any.

I have seen the animals tonight though. Knerten got up relatively early tonight (10pm) and started running in her wheel. She ran aroundfor the camera a little when I approached:

And even Fjerten was up for a snack:

Man, she needs to have her cage cleaned. Maybe that will be done tomorrow. I suppose I could clean their cages more often, but on the other hand... They are very small animals, their bodies can only produce so much waste. (Yeah, yeah... excuses, I know!)

Home alone

Did I mention that Knerten and Fjerten are low maintenance?

This weekend the animals must make do without any two-legs around. trilltrall and I are heading south to spend the weekend with his parents and the beasties must survive alone from Friday morning until Sunday night. And here’s the really brilliant thing about (dwarf) hamsters: you can leave them alone for a weekend or even a week, no problem! Just make sure they have enough food and water.

Of course we could always get a friend to watch the animal(s) if we ever got pets that can’t be left home alone for a week. It’s not that. But it’s really so very convenient that we can leave them alone without having to get other people involved every time we’re going away for the weekend or on vacation or whatever. It’s brilliant.

Also there’s no guilt about leaving your pet stuck in its cage for several days, as robs in any case aren’t the sort of pets that need to run around outside their cage. You really don't want to let them out and let them run about - you'll never catch them again! It's hard enough to catch Fjerten while she's in her cage. I can't imagine how we would catch her if she ever got the opportunity to run around on the floor.